Cereal Chem 51:779 - 787.  |  VIEW ARTICLE
Heavy Metals in Food Products from Corn.

W. J. Garcia, C. W. Blessin, and G. E. Inglett. Copyright 1974 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

Concentrations of seven heavy metals (zinc, manganese, copper, lead, cadmium, chromium, and mercury) were determined for a wide variety of consumer-oriented corn products: milled fractions, prepared breakfast and snack foods, canned and frozen sweet corn items, syrups, oil, and kernel popcorn. Samples were decomposed by wet-oxidation, and six of the elements were determined by flame atomic absorption. Mercury was measured by a nonflame atomic absorption technique. Metal content ranged from a high of more than 200 gamma zinc per g. in a defatted corn germ flour to a low of less than 0.001 gamma mercury per g. in some products. The possible introduction of heavy metals into finished corn products by industrial processing was studied by comparing concentrations in finished products with previously determined heavy metal concentration in whole kernel corn.